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But the man adored his young officer, and now, at a critical moment in Garfield's career, Brown was able to render him and the good cause an important service. The army was encamped near the scene of its victory. Close by was the Big Sandy river, a deep and rapid and swollen stream. No local boatman would venture down the torrent at such a time.
It will never be known, probably, how near a massacre followed the explosion of indignation at that maniac's murder of the Emancipator. Fortunately for the unsullied robe of Columbia, a hundred advocates of leaving retribution to Heaven echoed Garfield's appeasing address. Lincoln met the intermediator, but the ultimate negotiation fell through, like the others all.
To provide for his growing family, the young husband then bought fifty acres of land, a few miles away from his first home. At the same time, Amos Boynton, who had married Mrs. Garfield's sister, also bought a tract of land in the same locality.
It was at Middle Creek where the two small opposing armies met Garfield's forces numbered, all told, about 2600; the Confederates were nearly double. Garfield found the enemy posted on the double crest of a low hill, and he at once commenced his attack.
To this he owed the respect which advanced him to each position of trust until it made him head of the Government. And it was to this noble quality of his character that he owed his death. Corruption had grown up in connection with the offices of State, and Garfield's last mission was to purge the Government of this taint.
We do not know whether, during Garfield's illness, for instance apparently a clear case of disability it was proper for his cabinet to perform his presidential duties, or whether Arthur should not have assumed these. Barring this chance for conflict, it is not easy to think of an emergency in which the chief magistracy can now fall vacant, or the appropriate incumbent thereof be in doubt.
Hundreds of societies, tons of "literature," thousands of stump speeches attacked and defended the tariff. Schoolboys glibly retailed the standard arguments on one side or the other. Attention was centered, as it had not been since the war, on an important issue. At the close of the campaign the Republicans played a trick which was reminiscent of the Morey letter of Garfield's day.
Then he taught his officers as he used to teach his classes; and so, by sticking to his old principles of "thorough," he soon produced a regiment second to none in the Northern army. Garfield's duty in the first place was to help to keep the State of Kentucky out of the hands of the Confederates. At Middle Creek on January 10th, and again on the 17th at Prestonburg, he defeated General Marshall.
Such men do credit to the country, and if Garfield's rule of life could be universally adopted, the country would never be in peril. A conscientious man may make mistakes of judgment but he can never go far astray.
Garfield's advice to James to give up his plan of going to sea, and to commence and carry forward a course of education which should qualify him for a college professor, or a professional career. Her words made some impression upon his mind, but it is not always easy to displace cherished dreams. While she was talking, a knock was heard at the door and Mrs.
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